We have always asked the question whether dogs can understand the human language.
According to a new study, the answer is yes, to the joy of dog owners all around.
Although the new findings don’t show exactly whether dogs are able to understand and process the human language as well as its emotional aspects, it does show that dogs are at least paying attention to what we have to say, according to the study’s co-author Victoria Ratcliffe.
For the study, Ratcliffe and her colleagues reportedly brought 250 pet dogs of all breeds into their lab and placed them in a room with speakers on either side of their heads, according to Live Science. The researchers reportedly concluded that the dogs’ left hemispheres played a strong role in processing the sounds it hears in its right ear and vise versa.
When researchers played a clip of owners saying the words “Come on, then!” with the emotion electronically stripped out of their voice, the dogs reportedly turned their heads to the right, suggesting the left hemisphere was processing the speech. In contract, the dogs reportedly turned their heads to the left when they heard emotional words, suggesting the right hemisphere was processing that specific content.
“We can say at least that they seem to be getting both the verbal and the emotional, because they have biases for both,” Ratcliffe told the science publication.
Dogs are not only able to semi-understand the human language and emotions, but their brains are reportedly somewhat similar to ours.
“This is particularly interesting because our results suggests that the processing of speech components in the dog’s brain is divided between the two hemispheres in a way that is actually very similar to the way it is separated in the human brain,” stated Ratcliffe’s supervisor David Reby, according to Eurekalert.
The recent findings bring up talking dog YouTube star Mishka’s videos, which show her saying “I love you” back to her owners. Although she may not know exactly what her owners are saying to her, she may have processed that the emotional aspect of what they’re saying is positive and miraculously imitating them.
